Tag Archives: Virginia Johnson

I don’t know how to characterize this piece of news. Calling it “ironic” doesn’t fit, so I’ll settle for this being some kind of cosmic joke.

Dr. William H. Masters (1915-2001) and Virginia E. Johnson were pioneers in the study of human sexuality, especially sexual arousal and dysfunction. For their research, the couple (whom I’d always thought to be rather creepy) conducted interviews and observed sex acts. They wrote the best-sellers Human Sexual Response and Human Sexual Inadequacy, which have been translated into 30 languages. They founded an independent not-for-profit research institution in 1964, originally called the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation and renamed the Masters & Johnson Institute in 1978.

Virginia Johnson and Dr. William Masters

Two days ago, on Dec. 3, 2012, their 60-year-old married son, William Masters II, pled guilty to public lewdness after he was arrested last May for masturbating in New York’s Central Park, just 25 feet away from a public walkway. The Central Park incident is the first of two arrests of Masters for public indecency this year! (The other arrest was in Michigan.)

Mugshots of William Masters II

The Daily Mail reports, Dec. 4, 2012, that a New York police officer reported seeing Masters expose his genitals and masturbate in an area of the park called the Ramble that’s known for homosexual liaisons. The police complaint said: ‘The defendant intentionally exposed the private parts of his body in a lewd manner and committed a lewd act in a public place… with intent that he be so observed.”

Masters also is charged with exposing himself to two female undercover police officers as they passed by his exclusive summer home in Michigan this past September. That case is pending.

A local source described the Michigan locale to the New York Post, as “a very rich, wealthy gated community, with cottages built by families like [tire magnate] Harvey Firestone.”

Masters II was nude on the banks of the Pinnebog River at the Port Crescent State Park area in Hume Township when two female kayakers paddled by. The kayakers were undercover cops in a sting operation because of numerous lewd incidents reported from that area over the years.

The two officers said Masters II “yelled for attention” from his perch on a nearby dune and then proceeded to make “obscene gestures” at the women when they looked his way. The officers beached their kayak and chased after Masters, calling for backup from a Michigan conservation officer to help in their pursuit.

Given Masters’ previous history, officials in Michigan planned to canvass the area surrounding the posh summer homes in the Pointe aux Barques where he was caught, showing local women photographs of him in an attempt to link him to a previous plague of flashing incidents.

Master’s defense lawyer Irwin Rochman tells the New York Post his client is getting counseling.